I've been playing Wing Commander Privateer. All of a sudden now when I try to play after the game loads if I try to do anything in the game it goes to the "computer" where I can see my finances, manifest, location, load game etc. It wont do anything else. I've tried verify/repair but without any luck.

To exit the personal computer click on the PWR button. If you keep getting in the personal computer i believe you are having mouse issues, a click on the top left corner of the first screen of the game gets you there. Maybe you can check your mouse options in Dosbox.

Also if you are using a Joystick check if it is calibrated, ive got issues with that aswell.

Hope it helps!

I already had this problem back in the nineties, but I totally forgot how to solve this.
Are you playing through dosbox ?
Try pushing the shift, alt, ctrl keys in order to "unlock" them in case the issue comes from here.

Privateer has (had) certain DOSBox joystick issues that need specific settings in the DOSBox config file. Otherwise there would be calibration problems and IIRC the music speed would keep fluctuating, slowing down and speeding up depenging on what was happening on the screen.

I don't recall the specific settings that had to be changed, but probably something like this:

- Change the joystick controller type from "auto" to "4-axis" (or "none" if you don't play with a joystick at all, but with a mouse). I think this was the one which would fix the changing music speed issue.

- Change the "timed" value between "true" and "false", to see which works better for you. I don't recall if either one was suggested in general to be always used.

I'm still having this problem. I'm using the keyboard to play the game and only use the mouse to navigate around the bases and the computer.

Are you using the gog version ? Are you running the game through dosbox ?

If yes, in your dosbox conf file, check if memsize= is set to 16. Having 32 may result in problems.
Also, in the joystick section, try changing timed= from true to false and see if it helps or not.